Only appear to be two cases where they "recovered" data , but they do not say if they already "had" the passwords.

Lets not forget that if the user has a password but the data is corrupted then 95% of the hard work is already done.(keeping in mind the resources needed to crack AES)Just because a device is encrypted does not make recovery any harder if you have access to the PW.Not to mention many many security schemes are BULLSHIT and just rely on "hidden" areas that are access controlled.

Since they do not say what they transplanted........, If your going to discount such claims you really should give valid reasons.It could well have been both the controller AND the memory chip, in which case it would work, since the actual PCB boards are usually revision identical.Perhaps they needed to word it better "transplanted NON-faulty components".But again many of these houses HAVE the user passwords (since they are doing physical repairs), so there is no need to crack the AES.

Of course they have. In our stats the majority of drives / cards have no PW set. About failures, EVERYTHING seen. Oh yes, there are a lot of fried flash, this is the case where data is partially or not recoverable. In case of AES or other method encryption, if the drive is responsive and I have access to data (and it seems consistent) , if it was not stated from the beginning the customer have to pay the same (it's not my problem). If they want, we can discuss about de-encrypting data, if feasible and if they pay, of course.It is different if someone asks physical recovery AND de-encryption AT EVERY COST or if it is a.... "special case".

About the rest, it's simple to talk about success and hide the failures that's marketing.

They are on about special techniques to recover from these flash memory- but then they place a case review that they fixed the USB connector.. or some other trivial soldering process. Maybe they are special in a "special" way...

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Personally, I would say it is OK to describe it as a "special technique" , since there needs to be 'minimum' investment in specialist equipment, even if it is a SMD workstation.Sadly, the majority of the public think that slapping it about like an old TV or the use of a claw hammer to straighten a bent USB connector is perfectly acceptable, and if you ever see a solder job from most of 'joe public' , it is fair to say soldering skills could be classed as "special". (I have a picture someplace of a repair where a guy used a blow torch+hot nail and pliers to fix the soldering)

Here is the picture, I re-saved the picture at a lower res. so as not to overload the DL.

Generally before I bother looking at a stick I take a quick couple of pictures, just so there is no dispute later about how the damage occurred.

'apparently' pin 1 is top left away from the USB connector (according to the repairer,actually it is marked bottom right, because the PCB is upside down)

So we have a 'bridge' on the data lines the board was a 'bit' burned top left, bottom left, which was due to 'soldering' brazing or whatever word fits the 'skill' of the repairer.

The case was 'professionally' opened, even though we can see from the red end cap, it is actually a friction fit.Also the chip appeared to be covered in some sort of 'sticky' paste, maybe glue that had re-melted after having a blow torch on the pins, or perhaps the repairer was just 'very pleased' at his ability to solder an I.C and popped his load.

Any pros wanting to re-produce this, apparently you clamp a nail across the pins, then heat the end of the nail. (hence the carbonized PCB at the top) I would really like to see this guy repairing SMT components.

The issue I have when getting this sort of work is: can I be bothered, usually this sort of stuff is via a recommendation from someone who wants a favour for a friend.

Generally my work is specialist rather than main stream - 'suspect'- smashed drive ,you will not believe the number of criminals that think dropping a flash drive in a liquid destroys it.(my favorite type of case)

Physical damage is usually easy, as long as the Nand-Flash is not cracked. I have systems for recovery of devices with all the pins broken off, don't even need to solder connections back, same with the "BGA" type packages with the damned connections underneath, generally I don't like "pogo pins" they excessively stress the IC, and you have the issue of 'not' tampering with evidence.worst case is an etch down of the package and a re-bond, but even that is not as hard as it used to be.

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